Well, I know I am several days late with this post for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – I seem to have gotten behind with things on the blog lately – but it seemed such a good idea to mention a “Brick Wall Ancestor” so I am adding it now. Better late than never they say!!

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings is the one responsible for the theme of SNGF and this is how he introduces the idea of writing about A “Brick Wall Ancestor”.

“We all have “brick wall ancestors” – those for whom we cannot find a complete name, or identify a set of parents. By posting information about a “brick wall ancestor,” someone mght find your post and be able to contribute to your knowledge about that ancestor.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (and I sincerely hope that you do) – is to check your files and sources, advance to your keyboard, and:

1) Identify one of your “brick wall ancestors,” and tell us about him or her. What do you know? What would you like to know?

2) Tell us about this person in a blog post of your own, a comment on this blog post, or a Facebook comment or note”.

So here I am and although I decided to write about such an ancestor, I was then faced with the task of which one? As I thought about it, I was amazed at just how many “brick wall ancestors” I have!! I thought it best to write about someone I haven’t written about on the blog before and I also thought it best to maybe start with one of my earliest ancestors.

John Buts is the ancestor I have chosen. He appears in the Will of his mother-in-law Katharine Read (nee Lovjoy) in 1713 and Katharine kindly mentions that her daughter Rachell (born 1677) is the wife of John Butts. I was so pleased to discover this so started the hunt for the marriage of Rachell Read to John Butts.

I found they married in Lewknor, Oxfordshire on 29 August 1708 and they are both stated as being “of Chalgrove” (Oxfordshire). (He is John Buts rather than Butts in the register).

I looked for baptisms of any children they may have had in Lewknor, Chalgrove, Caversham (where Rachell was born and her family lived), and then widened the radius as I could not find any children for this couple at all.

Since I first discovered John Buts in his mother-in-law’s Will I have hunted everywhere for his own baptism and searched and searched throughout Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and London to find any children of John and Rachell. I have searched for a burial for both John and Rachell and also looked for Wills for either of them. I can’t find anything, anywhere to do with them.

So John is a real “brick wall ancestor” as all I have on him is his marriage and a mention in a Will. I’m sure something will turn up at some stage which might help me learn more about John Buts and it’s just so good that I am an extremely patient person!! 😉

July 18, 2010

Over at Genea-Musings, Randy has given us something to do for his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun theme (and I know I’m late again with this)!!

He says:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Find something that you have written that you are really proud of – the best of your work. Do an Edit > Copy of it.

2) Go to the website http://iwl.me/ and Paste your text into the waiting box.

3) Tell us which famous author you write like. Write it up in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog, or post it on Facebook. Insert the “badge of honor” in your blog if you can.

Well, I don’t know that any of what I have written here on this blog could be described as my best work, or even something that I have written that I am really proud of, but I chose one of my first few posts here to see who I wrote like. I used my post about My First Brick Wall – Cozens Read and then waited for the results!!

Here is a screen shot of the result! (I did not realise until later that there was a code we could add instead)!!

Screen Shot taken of the result of my I Write Like ... - copyright 2010

I was a little disappointed in this, only because I was hoping that I had picked up the writing trait from a well known author ancestor of mine!! Never mind. So, I thought I would test it again with another of my posts from this blog. This time I chose my post I Want To Be – A Graveyard Rabbit. So I added it to the window for analyzing, clicked the button and waited.

The result was that I Write Like … Dan Brown!

Well, at least I am consistent. Then I wondered if there was a limited amount of authors we could write like included on this website.

So, I added another piece of text, this time from a humourous article written by my brother – perhaps he had picked up the writing trait from our well known author ancestor instead?

I went through all the procedure again and the result for my brother was … Dan Brown!

Well, at least we are keeping our writing style in the family!

It’s certainly been an interesting exercise and a lot of fun and now I look forward to Randy’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun next week!! 😉

I know I am a little late for this as it is not Saturday, but Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings has suggested we write a Genealogy Clerihew as part of his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun series.

It seems that a “clerihew” is a four line irregular poem or verse which follows an AABB rhyming scheme and it has been named for the birthday of the inventor Edmund Clerihew Bentley who was also known as a writer and poet. (More can be read about this at Jim Smith’s A Genealogy Hunt blog).

Randy asks us to add a post to our blog, or comment on his blog about our attempts at writing a Genealogy Clerihew!!

I have to warn you that I really am not a poet, and while I have had a look at some of the other GeneaBloggers’ own Clerihews (actually really very good), I somehow think my attempt is completely wrong from what it should be like. But hey, I’m giving it a go and at the very least my attempts should cause some laughs!! 😉

And for those of you that know me and know of my great preoccupation with my 6 x great grandfather Cozens Read, this attempt had to be about him!!

Here goes: A Genealogy Clerihew – “Ode To Cozens Read”

For ten long years I searched the Baptism of Cozens Read,

Now it’s the same for his Mum so of him I plead,

Can you give me a sign please to show the parents of Elizabeth Cosens,

And hopefully that will take me back many more years by the dozens!

Christine Read – copyright 2010

Oh dear, not a very good attempt I feel, but I did try to do it quickly!!

My Graveyard Rabbit Blog

My Project 365 Blog

YOUR ANCESTORS

If you could see your ancestors
All standing in a row
Would you be proud of them
Or don't you really know?
Some strange discoveries are made
In climbing family trees
And some of them, you know
Do not particularly please!

If you could see your ancestors
All standing in a row
There might be some of them, perhaps
You wouldn't care to know
But here's another question, which
Requires a different view ...
If you could meet your ancestors
Would they be proud of you?(Author unknown)